Beach Day!

I was so very excited for the Olympics, and I thought I was going to be able to watch them all live, but since we do not have cable I can't...which does not make me very happy but I will get over it. I still try and stay as in tuned as possible without being able to watch any of them. Anyway today we (meaning a bunch of people from church) went to a private beach owned by a friends father. It was so beautiful and relaxing. A bunch of us made a fairly large size sand castle with a mote and we even got the boat to float! We went swimming, skipped rocks, and just laid out in the sun and relaxed. :) That is what I call a bum day! Tomorrow I have my all day clinic with the Buffalo Therapeutic Riding Center. Which I am soooo beyond excited for! Being able to see first hand the clinic that I may very well be taking within the next few years. Well that is about it for tonight. I will update tomorrow when I have finished with the clinic.

A Few Jumbled Words

I don't really have much to blog about tonight. So I will start with the Wake service that I went to on Sunday night. One of my friends Alan, his grandmother passed away from a heart attack about a week ago and so to support him a few of us went to her service. It was a really cool experience as they held a small service in which they sang and spoke a little. It was very spirit filled and as much as the people were hurting, they were definitely praising Jesus for the time that they had with her.
Tonight Olivia, Lauren, and I went to dinner and had a wonderful time just chilling, laughing, and relaxing :) I have so very much enjoyed getting to know these women and how they are becoming prominent people in my life. I may one day leave but these people will always be in my heart!

Love Buffalo/Breakout

Well lets just say that I have a hard time remembering that I am supposed to be blogging my experiences. So, to catch you up on what has gone on in the past month or so, I am slowly but surely getting used to the city. Buffalo is growing on me, no that does not mean I want to live in the city permanently, but I finally think I will survive until March. This past week I have been really struggling with homesickness as my family is having a big family reunion this weekend so I am trying to surround myself with friends to try and take away some of the feelings. I did have a really good day Monday at the BTRC (Buffalo Therapeutic Riding Center) as they asked if I would be one of the volunteers to help out with one of the early clinics. So I felt very honored as they said they need people who are very good with the riders and with the horses. :) So being around the horses helped a little bit with the homesickness. Anyway an update on my work.

I just got back from what is called Love Buffalo/Breakout. It is a week missions trip group that has about 300 people coming to "overhaul" the West Side. We worked on roofs, porches, painting, picking up garbage, and evangelism. We were able to bless many and were blessed by many. I took 3 girls who live/hang out on the west side to give them a missions trip experience. So it started on Sunday, picked them up from the church and we headed for a church in Tonawanda. I have to admit it went pretty smoothly, which was a blessing! Monday morning hit and I got a few grumbles and I had to remind them that they chose to come on this trip! To make a long story short, I had plenty of good moments, but I also had plenty of really rough ones. Rough enough that I wanted to pull my hair out...their hair out and threaten them with being sent home. But through it all the Lord was at work in their hearts and in mine as no I did not send any of them home. I could tell that both the Lord and Satan were working on all 3 of the girls as so many of the things they were doing were so conflicted. I could see that they really did want to do good, but Satan just kept feeding them lies and they (like the rest of us) had a hard time to distinguish what choices they should make or what they should do. Thursday roles around and I am praying very hard for all 3 of the girls. They had the best day working that they had had yet so it was a good day! Thursday night rally hits and this is where Jesus really displays himself :) At one point during worship one of my girls turns and gives me the biggest smile and in my heart I knew that tonight was the night she would accept Christ. So the song ended and someone prayed and I took her back into the foyer and sat her down. I asked if I could pray for her and she said yes. When I was done praying I looked at her and said, "Are you ready to accept Jesus as your savior?" and she said yes! :) So we prayed together and there was a lot of tears but when we finished praying she looked at me and just started smiling and giggling :) She was experiencing the peace that only Jesus can give! We went back in and listened to a man speak (which is one of the best messages that I have ever heard!) and at the end of the message he asked all of the non-believers to take a step of faith and come forward if they wanted to accept Christ. All three of my girls went up and accepted Christ (by this point I am like almost weeping for joy!) To have worked with these three girls for almost 5 months and then to see them all come to Christ was an experience that I will never ever forget. If this is the one reason that I did come to Buffalo for, it will have been well worth it. No I am not leaving yet, I still have about 7 months left, but if this much has happened in the 5 months I have been here...I can't even begin to imagine what the rest of this time has to hold.
To those reading my blog, if you have read this and you want that peace that I was talking about go and find a Christian friend and talk to them. Why wait when you can have Jesus? What better reward could we ever want?